Demon's Kiss

Demon’s Kiss

V.J. Devereaux

Book 1 in the Demon Allure series.

Gabriel Nicholas is kidnapped and dragged into a vast
underground chamber. Spotlighted in the center of that room is something—someone?—quite
unbelievable. He’s also, without doubt, the most magnificent specimen of
masculine beauty Gabriel has ever seen. He is absolutely stunning.

Despite the circumstances, Gabriel burns to touch all that
gorgeous, gleaming skin—a living palette of shifting red and black. She wants
to run her fingers through his silken ebony hair, feel those strong hands on
her flesh…feel that sinuous tail twine around her body.

He is Asmodeus, the Demon of Lust. He is legend come to
life. Able to shift from demon to human form, Asmodeus must feed on sex and the
blood of women to sustain his power. Gabriel has been brought here for him. To
slake his every need. But she soon realizes Asmodeus is just as much a captive
as she is.

Chapter One

It happened so fast Gabriel had no time to react, barely
enough time for her heart to sink, to feel the sting of sharp regret for all
the things she had not done and bitter recrimination at having let her guard
down. It was late and she was tired from a long day at work. Something had
changed recently on one of her ongoing cases but she had yet to figure out what
it was so she was distracted. She was also in her own apartment building where
she should have been safe. None of that mattered—she should have been more
alert.

No place was safe. No place. She knew that.

Even as she stepped out of the elevator and registered the
movement, the presences, even as she dropped the groceries she held in her
arms, she knew it was too late for her to draw her own weapon. A gun was
already pointing at her.

She’d made a lot of enemies over the years but few of them
were brave enough, or crazy enough, to risk this.

It was still happening though.

Will I register the report before I die?
she
wondered. She heard a sharp
pfft
and felt a sting at her throat.
A
dart?

They weren’t there to kill her, at least not right away. She
had enough time for a flash of horror before darkness closed in.

That was the last thing she remembered until men hauled her
roughly to her feet and half carried, half dragged her out of an unfamiliar
room. None of them said a word. There were far too many of them—those silent
men, all of them armed—for her to fight alone.

Dazed, groggy from the drug, she registered that she was
somewhere other than her apartment building as she tried to regain her feet, to
gain some sort of control. Her weapon and badge were missing. The gun’s
familiar weight was absent at her hip, her badge was gone from her waist. She
still wore the suit she had worn when they took her.

The ceiling of the vast chamber the men dragged Gabriel into
arched so high above them it disappeared into the shadows cast by the spotlights.

Those lights speared down to an enormous circular stage. She
had a vague sense of stadium-style seating that arched in a great half-circle
around that stage but she couldn’t see it for the brightness of the lights.
From the shadows, a voice chanted steadily and monotonously.

Gabriel shook her head to try to clear it.

The stage area captured her attention. She was transfixed,
riveted by what she saw there. Her heart seemed to stop.

Spotlighted in the center of that vast chamber was, without
question, the most magnificent specimen of masculine beauty she had ever seen
in her life.

A rush of heat raced from her head to her toes.

He was absolutely, stunningly gorgeous.

And impossible.

Tall, he had to top at least six foot six, give or take an
inch or so, and every single one of those marvelous inches was beautifully
muscled. The firm curves of those muscles gleamed as if they had been oiled.
His chest and shoulders were broad, his pecs deeply curved and his stomach gave
a new definition to washboard abs. His waist and hips were narrow, every muscle
in them, including his obliques, sharply defined. Even his legs were gorgeous.

Hair as dark and glossy as a raven’s wing streamed as smooth
and straight as a ruler to his broad shoulders, framing a face that might have
been carved by a master sculptor. Every line was clean, perfect, from his broad
forehead to his high cheekbones with their deep hollows, from his finely
bridged nose to the defined line of his square jaw. His mouth was a thing of
beauty—firm, neither too thin nor too lush. There would probably be dimples if
he smiled.

Completely naked from the top of his horned head to his
clawed feet, it was impossible for her to miss any part of him.

That included the horns, short and curved, that sprang from
his forehead, and the sinuous tail that twined like a restless cat’s around his
body. That tail was smooth except for the end where it flared into a dull
point. The motion of it was oddly hypnotic, catching the eye as it twined and
swayed.

A pair of partially folded wings arched up from his back.

His skin was a deep red color—not copper, but
red
—a
rich, dark scarlet, like the guy from that demon movie and yet not. There were
odd patterns of black that shifted and flowed beneath the surface, reminding
her of a chameleon. But, unlike a chameleon, his skin appeared to be as smooth
and glossy as satin. Those patterns in his skin changed constantly, the shift
of the colors beneath it apparently reflected his agitation—none of which
showed on his impassive face but was echoed instead in every taut line of his
incredible body.

Beautiful, long-lashed eyes the color of rubies touched with
molten gold met hers and reflected kindness, an ancient, ageless wisdom and an
anger so intense it was nearly scorching. The patterns of red and gold within
those eyes shifted and whirled entrancingly, enticingly and furiously.

That rage was not directed at her.

He had fangs, the faint white tips indenting his lower lip
in a way that seemed oddly sexy. Her body responded automatically to the sight
of them. She could almost feel them pierce her skin. Warmth flooded her.

Both his hands and feet bore claws the color of polished
jet. Those hands were huge, beautiful, the fingers long but strong.

Rough iron bracelets etched with runes encircled his wrists.
Something about them said they were not decoration though.

He also had the biggest cock she had ever seen and every
rampant inch of it was fully erect.

Despite the circumstances, despite what he was, just to look
at all the magnificent masculine glory made Gabriel burning hot and wet. A part
of her yearned to touch all that gorgeous, gleaming skin. Something about him
made her want to run her fingers through that silken, ebony hair, to have those
strong, clawed hands on her flesh and that sinuous tail twining around her body
as it now twined around his— even though what she saw spotlighted in the middle
of the floor was, frankly, incredible and impossible.

Because he was, without a doubt and to all appearances, a
demon—horns, forked tail and all.

A beautiful and incredibly sexy demon.

There was only one problem—demons didn’t exist. They weren’t
real.

But one clearly stood before her, living and breathing.

Beautiful.

As incredibly beautiful as the fallen angels that demons
were reputed to be.

To her stunned astonishment, she found she wanted him more
than she had ever wanted any man and with an intensity she had never
experienced. Her pussy throbbed, ached. Even given the daunting size of his
cock, she wanted it, wanted him, inside her.

She’d had lovers, men she had thought she’d loved, even some
she had ached for, but something had always been missing.

Not like this. It had never been like this…this…raging
desire.

A matching hunger radiated from him like heat from an oven,
even at that distance.

Embedded around him in the gleaming, black marble floor of
the massive, shadowed chamber were concentric circles in iron, copper and
silver. As Gabriel had learned in the course of her career, those were the
metals of magic. Between and around each circle, glyphs and symbols, some of
which she recognized. Some of them made her skin crawl. They were etched deeply
into the marble.

She recognized instantly, from her reading, that it was a
magic circle—a cage, a trap.

Gabriel was aware of a sense of power in the room, of the
demon’s power—chained, banked. She sensed another powerful presence, or
presences, outside the rings but hidden within the shadows.

It was also clear that, demon or not, he was as captive as
she. A monstrous iron chain led from a shackle around his ankle to a bolt in
the floor.

Proud as he was—that pride was visible in every line of his
strong body, his stance a study in defiance even in the face of defeat—and as
strong as he was, being chained, being bound to this place, had to be agony,
had to be infuriating. In every line of his magnificent body she could see his
rage, see how he longed to be free.

Though he wasn’t supposed to be real, Gabriel couldn’t deny
what she saw before her eyes, and her heart went out to him in his pride and
his defiance. If for no other reason than that she shared it—the rage, the fury
and the helplessness—as hard hands held her prisoner too, with her wrists
twisted up behind her back, her shoulders screaming in agony that she would not
show.

From the darkness she sensed a signal.

Without fanfare or warning, the men who held her threw her
across the room. They shoved her so hard that she staggered across the marble
floor and stumbled across those circles etched into it. Power of some kind
prickled her skin as she passed over each one, like the moment before a
lightning storm. Alien sounds and smells assaulted her as she passed over those
rings. Her senses reeled with chaotic visions, images. An atavistic shiver of
terror went over her at the thought of what might happen if she stopped between
those protective rings.

The demon reached out and caught her. His strong hands
closed around her arms. He seemed to know the damage he could do with them for
his touch was firm but gentle.

Gabriel clasped her hands around powerful forearms that were
like satin-covered steel as he steadied her, her own fair skin almost
shockingly white against the deep red of his. In his luminous eyes she saw a
flash of helpless fury and despair. She had a powerful sense of a deep hunger
and sharp regret, of honor somehow violated.

Something in those glowing eyes called to her, kindred
spirit to kindred spirit. Here was strength not just of body but of spirit and
character too, a nobility that was ingrained in him, etched in blood and bone
and sinew.

It was clear to her that he struggled with himself. It was
there in the swirling patterns of his eyes, in the shadows that moved beneath
his smooth, smooth skin, and in the tightness of his muscles.

He hungered. It was apparent in every line of him, in that tension.

Even so, looking up into his preternaturally beautiful face
as her hands closed over the strength of his arms, as she inhaled the intensely
masculine scent of him, the truth of him struck her with a visceral punch that
echoed through every atom of her body in a surge of desire so intense it nearly
made her cry out. Her pussy clenched, went hot and tight.

Their eyes met and it felt to Gabriel as if the world
shifted, tilted, a sudden tectonic shift of the soul, before it righted itself
and everything fell into place once again as their gazes locked.

All Asmodeus had seen from the moment the newcomers entered
the room was the woman, her silver hair so bright against the shadows and the
black armor of the men. Shock reverberated through him and with it came a sharp
flare of recognition. Desire and need came suddenly, powerfully. At that short
distance, the brilliant lights around him made details difficult but he could
tell she was lovely, he could sense she was strong in body, mind and spirit.
His empathy echoed with her warrior’s soul. Her features were too youthful for
the streaming silver waves of her hair, her body too limber, her lush breasts
still high and full.

His hunger spiked and raged within him, nearly too strong to
deny as she collided against him, all that lovely pale skin glowing beneath the
lights, her bright spirit piquant to his senses. The scent of her instinctive
arousal at the sight of him was a goad that gave spur to his hunger, set it
against his will to drown it. Her skin was so soft—as soft as rose
petals—beneath his hands.

He had not touched any woman, much less one such as she, for
millennia.

The chant battered him.

His will had been weakened by starvation, by the torment and
isolation. It was all tangled up inside him. He hated this but he could not
fight both the compulsion of his hunger and the compulsion that those who held
them had set on him. Or the desire, the need, that sparked instantly at the
sight of her, at the sense of her. And now at the scent of her as it rose to overwhelm
him.

He needed and she was the answer to that need, to all his
needs. If she had protested…struggled…he would have fought, tried to deny
himself, to find a way, somehow, to fight his need, his hunger, but she did
not. Eyes as blue as the sky of this plane darkened instead with a like desire
as they met his, her fine mouth softened as she swayed involuntarily toward
him. His hunger surged almost uncontrollably.

He hated it, hated the circumstances but he could give her
and himself that much. Those around them would not watch as he answered his
raging hunger. He would take his punishment as it came—and come it would, he
knew—with no regrets. A master of fire, even the iron bracelets they put on him
could not thwart him completely and he had just energy enough for the magic to
do it.

Firepots appeared and smoke spiraled as it and the sharp
scent swirled around them.

Need raged within him, nearly overwhelmed him. His fangs
dropped, extended.

In one motion he turned her, clasped her against his body,
his erection pressed hard against her bottom and lower back. One arm went
across her chest. His hand automatically curled around one sweetly full breast
and tightened there. The other hand caught a handful of her hair and drew her
head swiftly to one side.

“Forgive me,” he said. “I cannot… I must…” As quick as a
cobra, he struck, his sharp fangs sinking deep into the curve of her shoulder
and throat.

Her blood filled his mouth.

Asmodeus shuddered with pleasure as she trembled in his
arms. His own need surged as his venom spurted into her, as his tongue flicked
over her. The venom that would prepare her body for him, to allow him to feed
from her, and then all thought vanished.